DHAKA, Bangladesh

Bangladesh’s top diplomat on Sunday warned that the protracted Rohingya crisis would affect the whole South Asian region along with the most affected Bangladesh.

“The long-standing Rohingya crisis in Myanmar has continued to haunt not only Bangladesh but the South Asian region as a whole,” Bangladesh’s Foreign Minister A. K. Abdul Momen said during an international webinar entitled Revisiting Contemporary Peace and Security Challenges in the South Asian Region.

Referring to the broader regional peace and stability, Momen added: “For the greater interest of the persecuted people and the stability of the region, the Rohingya crisis needs to be resolved in a durable manner with utmost priority.”

Bangladesh is currently the most affected country by the Rohingya plight as the South Asian state has been hosting more than 1.1 million members of the persecuted community with a steep socio-economic and ecological cost.

According to Amnesty International, more than 750,000 Rohingya refugees, mostly women, and children fled Myanmar and crossed into Bangladesh after Myanmar forces launched a crackdown on the minority Muslim community in August 2017.

Since Aug. 25, 2017, nearly 24,000 Rohingya Muslims have been killed while more than 34,000 thrown into fires, over 114,000 beaten, as many as 18,000 Rohingya women and girls raped, over 115,000 Rohingya homes burned down, and 113,000 others vandalized by Myanmar’s state forces, according to a report by the Ontario International Development Agency.

“We have seen how an act of mindless persecution in a particular territory could affect the security and stability landscape of a region,” Momen said.

Underlining the Rohingya crisis as no more an internal issue of Myanmar, he said: “Once an internal matter for Myanmar, this has now destabilized the regional tranquility of South and Southeast Asia and triggered a global outcry.”

He criticized the international community for not playing a due role to put pressure on Myanmar to stop the persecution of its own people and developing relations with the Southeast Asian state.

“The strategic location and untapped natural resources of Rakhine state have made Myanmar a strategic partner of the major world and regional powers. They started strengthening political and economic ties with Myanmar in the form of trade, investment, and normalization of diplomatic relations in the hope that this would lead towards democratization of the country,” Momen said.

He urged the international community to be “assertively vocal” against severe restrictions on movement, health care, education, access to the internet, and livelihood opportunities in Rakhine for fostering an environment conducive for voluntary repatriation of Rohingya.

“It is better if the regional leaders understand early that statelessness of a large ethnic group on the face of persecution might turn a volcano open if not treated with promise and action to serve justice,” Momen warned.